Weight Distribution Mechanism in Tread System?

[Madison]

Originally posted by sanddrag
Could you post a picture of this "anti-transmission" you speak of?

I'm at work, so I don't have any pictures handy. Ian is seeing if he has anything that'll show what I'm talking about.

It's nothing too revolutionary or anything. Since I have no real idea about how automobile transmissions work, and we recognized the need for a shift-on-the-fly sort of system, we developed an alternate way of achieving both a high speed (11 ft/s) and high torque (most powerful robot in the Newton division, as per team 236).

It consisted of, in reality, simply shifting 'wheels' over shifting 'gears'. It's been done before, but ours was unique because one set of 'wheels' was a large tank-tread mechanism, both sets of wheels were coupled to the same four motor driving mechanism, and it looked supremely cool

::EDIT:: here's a reasonable aerial view of the drivetrain.

http://wolos.d2g.com:89/robot/Pict23.JPG

The wheels were used by for high-speed, low-torque applications. The belts, running down the center, were for low-speed, high-torque, bulldozer applications.

The pneumatic pistons on either side raised on lowered the belts. When I get home, I bet I can provide some video, even, if you or anyone is interested. It's a tad difficult to explain without some visual aids.